From the Psalms one passes naturally to the Proverbs, though by a steep religions descent, and we find both Egypt and Babylonia rich in the Literature of Wisdom. The 'Precepts of Ptah-Hotep) reach far back into the 3d millen nium 'Lc., a record of experience already hoary, and the great library of Ashurbanipal teemed with proverbial philosophy. The Assyrian seems rather closer both in form and in spirit to the Hebrew than is the Egyptian. "Before thy God mart thou have a pure heart, For that is befitting a godhead? "The fear (of God) begets favor, Offering enriches life, And prayer brings forgiveness of sin? Ptah-Hotep: "If thou plowest and there is growth in the field, the god gives it as increase in thy land. Satisfy not thine own mouth beside thy kin? "Love thy wife without alloy.' "Justice is mighty, immutable, fixed? "To please the mas ter greatly, let us do for him more than he has bid,' which recalls the Gospel saying. Since in the proverb it is mainly a matter of practical prudence rather than religious sentiment, it is not strange that the Assyrian and Egyptian rank well with the Hebrew, though overtoned by the voice of Wisdom in Proverb viii. The climax of ancient, at least, Egyptian morality is found in the 'Book of the Dead,' dating in form from the 18th, in ideas from the 3d dynasty, and the Judgment Scene with its three sessions pf Introduction, Disavowal and Address to the underworld gods, reminds us at points of the picture (Mt. xxv, 31ff) that inspired the 'Dies Ire.' The soul says: "I live, I feed upon right and truth; I have given bread to the hungry, and water to the thirsty, and raiment to the naked . . . therefore, let it be said 'Come in peace, Came in peace.' Compare also "I have not caught fish with bait made of fish of their kind' with "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk?' It was especially in prophecy that Israel sur passed all other peoples, yet was not quite alone. As Samuel (1 Sam. iii, 3-4) and Zechariah (i, 7, 8) had visions of Yahveh in the night, and Isaiah (vi, 1) in the temple, so in the stress of Ashurbanipal's victorious struggle with Tiu man, King of Elam, "a seer lay down, he saw a prophetic dream" of Ishtar, armed like Arte mis and Athena, promising her invincible help to her faithful worshiper, the Assyrian King. As the prophets, in particular Amos and Isaiah, denounce the avarice, luxury and oppression of the upper classes, so does the sense of common right and social justice find powerful and pas sionate utterance in the nine 'Pleas of the Peasant) in Egyptian story. In the prophets, the basis is always religious, such is the will of Yahveh; but the peasant Hunanup's appeal more than a thousand years older is to the level scales, to the abstract and eternal principles of truth and equity: "Speak the truth; for it is great, it is mighty, it is everlasting.° Most characteristic of prophecy is the messianic ex pectation, the vision of a king of justice and holiness, who shall restore to its pristine beauty the marred visage of creation and establish a universal reign of righteousness and peace. Characteristic, but not peculiar, nay, almost as universal as the yearning of the soul of man. The classic peoples longed for the return of the Golden Age. In his famous (Eclogue' it was proclaimed as at hand by Virgil, and the circummediterranean world hailed even Augus tus as such a Saviour-Pacificator. But 2,000 years before, such aspirations had found expres sion in the musings of the Egyptian Ipuwer. However, the distinctly religious and mono theistic setting, along with the national con sciousness of world-mission and destiny, re mains unique in the Hebrew prophecies.
On the other hand, world-weariness, if pes simistic, may easily pass over into hedonism or even sensualism, the "came diem' of the Roman poet; such was not only the case with Qoheleth (the Preacher), as in ix, 7-9, but also of the Babylonian scribe of 2000 a.c., who ex horts Gilgamesh, "Day and night be joyful. Daily ordain gladness, Day and Night make merry and riot, Let thy garments be bright. Thy head purify . . . a wife enjoy in thy bosom'—quite in the manner of the Hebrew moralist. Close akin to this world-weariness, whether pessimistic in the Preacher or optimistic in the Prophets, is bewilderment at the moral government of the earth, at the sufferings of the righteous and theprosperity of the wicked.
This problem of Good and Evil is grappled in the book of Job,— apparently with an eye on the misfortunes of the people Israel,— perhaps the finest product of the Hebrew mind, but 1,500 years earlier, the Nippurian Tabu-utul Bel, a righteous and religious official ("prayer was my wisdom, my sacrifice, my dignity') in life,' appears to have fallen on evil days and slanderous tongues: "All day long the pursuer pursues me, In the watches of the night lets me breathe not a moment; Through torture my joints are torn asunder, . . . On my couch I welter like an ox.... My enany heard, his face did gladden'—which reminds us not only of Job, but of the sufferer in the Psalms. The wonderful central mass of the Hebrew drama is without parallel in Baby lonian, and its close, perhaps an addition, sur passes the account of how the Nippurian was cured by the messenger from Marduk. Thus the tale of the polytheistic magic-practising offi cial sinks'far below the empyrean flight of the Hebrew, but the parallel is none the less important.
Altogether by itself in Scripture is the Song of Songs, a cento of love-lays, lively and beauti ful, if often indelicate in suggestions. Similar ditties have been heard in the East and taken down in modern times, but the like were also heard in Egypt nearly 4,000 years ago, and remind us vividly of many passages in the Song, thus: "I am thy darling sister, To thee like a bit of land, Each shrub of grateful fragrance. . . . A beautiful place to wander, Thy hand in my hand, My soul inspired, My heart in bliss, Because we go together.' Compared with Cant. v, 1; vi, 2, 3, these lines show that the elder bard has not only rivaled the Hebrew but also the moderns in celebrating the tender passion. It is noteworthy that the use of the term "sis ter,' intelligible enough in Egyptian, clears up in a measure the use in the Hebrew.
Lastly the great finds of papyri (dated 494 400 a.c.) at Yeb or Elephantine-island (in the Nile, near the first Cataract) (published Lon don 1906; Leipzig 1911), show that the Jewish military colony established perhaps by Psam metik II of Egypt (593-88) had built a "temple of Yahu-god' there before Cambyses' conquest (525). A letter to Bagohi (407) tells how this temple had lain three years in ruins, destroyed by "wicked Waidrang.)) Having appealed in vain to the High Priest, Jehohanan, at Jerusa lem, they turned successfully to the Persian governor Bagoas (Bagohi) and to the two sons of Sanballat, Governor of Samaria, to order its rebuilding. The bearing of these facts on the date of Deuteronomy is disputed. It is possible that Isaiah xix, 19-22, may refer to this temple and not, as hitherto supposed, to that of Onias (170 a.c.). Another letter (419) from a cer tain Hananiah instructs the Jews of Yeb con cerning the Passover, which seems to imply their ignorance of the Pentateuch, as critics maintmin.
Such are the more important connections of Hebrew with profane literature, as they are recognized in the works of even conservative scholars, such as Rogers (1912) and Barton (1916). Pan-Babylonism, however, goes very much further in the learned works of Gunkel eSchopfung und Chaos in Urzeit und End zeit)), Winckler in his new edition, with Zim mern, of Schrader's (Keilinschriften und das Atte Testament,) his (Israelitische Geschichte,) and numerous monographs, Zimmern in the same edition of Schrader, and elsewhere, A. Jeremias, the spokesman and continuator of Winckler, in his (Das Alte Testament im Licht des Orients,) and especially Jensen, who in his colossal work on the Gilgamesh-Epos would seem to regard nearly all °world-litera ture as an outgrowth from the Babylonian legend, even the gospel with its Christ. Less enthusiastic scholarship reduces such claims to far more modest dimensions. With more rea son Zimmern, in his contribution to the °Jesus Question," finds remote suggestions of New Testament teaching in primitive Babylonian ideas, and Gunkel finds the aboriginal cos mogonic struggle reflected in the Apocalyptic visions of the final consummation. The Winckler-Jeremias theories contain perhaps many golden grains of truth, but it will require years to sift them out, °Under the whistle of wind and the swing of the winnower's shovel.') The eagerly expected publication of Ed. Glaser's North Arabian inscriptions may shed light on many dark places.